Missy Franklin works out at the Lowry long course pool, in Denver, Thursday June, 7, 2012, as she gets ready for the up coming London Olympics.

OMAHA — Missy Franklin may not only be the new face of American women’s swimming, she could become the most prolific Olympic swimmer in American women’s history.

If she qualifies for the 200 backstroke Sunday night — she has the top time in the world — she will have qualified for seven Olympic events: the 100 and 200 backstrokes, the 100 and 200 freestyles and all three relays. No American woman has ever swam in more than six. That was Natalie Coughlin and Katie Hoff four years ago.

OMAHA — In the Missy Franklin recruiting war that will heat up this fall, California coach Teri McKeever has a distinct advantage over Stanford’s Lee Mauer. Both are recruiting Franklin, the 17-year-old phenom from Regis Jesuit High, but McKeever is an assistant Olympic coach and will go with the team to London.

If Franklin makes the team, nothing in the NCAA rules prevents McKeever from talking to her — as an Olympic coach. McKeever said she won’t abuse the rule.

“Whoever ends up on the team, there is a time and a place to take care of what her future might look like,” McKeever said during a Sunday press conference.

Nicolas Mahut of France reacts after losing on the of his 11-hour, 5-minute first round match against John Isner. (Glyn Kirk-Pool, Getty Images)

Well, it sure took long enough. Yesterday, and the sports world, that is.

By now, you may have heard about that marathon of a tennis match. You know, the one that spanned 10 hours, and still needed another hour this morning to finish up.

At 11 hours and five minutes, it set a new record for the longest match in tennis history. By more than four hours. Its fifth set alone, at eight hours and 11 minutes, bested the previous record for the longest match by an hour and 38 minutes.

Fifty-three young American hockey players will have a chance to make the 2008-09 U.S. World Junior Team. The good/bad news from a Colorado standpoint: No DU or CC players were on the list.

It’s obviously good promotion to have your guys make this team, but it’s so taxing for the players. In the end, I think the program suffers — and not only because they missed the NCAA holiday tournaments.

In last year’s tournament, DU’s Tyler Ruegsegger and Rhett Rakhshani were teammates with CC’s Bill Sweatt. They returned to Colorado and, for the DU boys especially, they were less effective than when they left. Great experience for the threesome, but bad for their schools.

The only kid with a Colorado background on the tryout list is former Littleton resident Drayson Bowman, who plays for Spokane of the Western Hockey League. Bowman grew up playing in the Littleton Hockey Association.

Because of my mountaineering background, which includes a trip to Mount Everest in 1985 and many friends who have been regular visitors to Tibet, I have long been particularly sensitive to the plight of Tibet and its people. But I am appalled by the attempts of pro-Tibet activists to obstruct the journey of the Olympic Flame — or extinguish it — on its relay from the site of ancient Olympia to Beijing.

I spent the better part of three hours watching CNN coverage of the fiasco in San Francisco Wednesday. While I’m not usually a fan of placard-waving protests, I have no problem with people who show up at the torch relay to protest Chinese behavior. But attempts to disrupt the relay are despicable — and counter-productive. If there hadn’t been attempts to thwart the relay’s progress in London and Paris, raising the real potental of violence and injury, I’m betting San Francisco officials would have kept the flame on its originally scheduled route. After all, SF is hardly an inhospitable place for free expression.

Speaking in opposition to tyranny is honorable, but activists surrender moral authority when they adopt the kind of tactics they seek to oppose.

There are those who wonder how the International Olympic Committee ever thought it could avoid its current public relations nightmare when it awarded the 2008 Olympics to a repressive Chinese regime in Beijing.

My question: Why did China’s rulers ever think they could continue to suppress human rights without incurring the wrath of politicians and activists around the world as the Games approach? After all, China accepted the 2008 Games with assurances there would be progress on human rights, promises which seem not to have been met.

I covered the meetings in Moscow seven years ago when Beijing beat Toronto for the 2008 Summer Games and Jacques Rogge was elected to succeed Juan Antonio Samaranch as IOC president. I remember the debate well: Is it better to deny Beijing the Games and isolate the world’s most populous country further, or let it have the Games and hope worldwide attention would encourage it to moderate its behavior.

The IOC bet on engagement. Now it looks like a losing bet.

One more point: Protesting the Olympic torch relay is one thing, but the acts of violent disruption and obstruction that occurred this week in London and Paris are despicable. Let’s hope we don’t see the same Wednesday in San Francisco — but I’m afraid we will.